Hamels, Phillies Finalize 6-Year, $144 Million Pact

UPDATE, 7:47 am: Bob Nightengale says there is likely a seventh-year vesting option that could push the contract to over $160 million.

Big time investment.

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Fox Sports was the first to have the report, and now the contract details are trickling in on the Cole Hamels deal.

Jon Heyman from CBSSports.com says the deal is six years, $144 million. (By the way – kudos to Jim Salisbury from CSNphilly.com for nailing the dollar amount with an educated guess a few days ago).

I’ve long believed it would be in this range, but it’s a ton of money locked into yet another pitcher. Any more than 6/144 is really pushing the limits of how far they can go.

For Hamels, he seemed to be mulling this offer for a bit while attempting to weigh the pros and cons of leaving such a deal on the table to head to free agency. Taking the deal means he gets to stay in the only city he’s known professionally.

As for the fans, there can be no complaints about this. The Phillies could ill afford to lose their youngest, and now best, ace to another team, while Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay begin to show some age. In the future, if this deal becomes an albatross (which it shouldn’t, but you never know with pitchers) the fans have no room to bash it. Amaro locked him into place, which is exactly what he needed to do.

Now, the dirty work begins for Amaro. He can now look past this and focus on making the Phillies better for the remainder of 2012 and beyond. I believe they’ll be both buyers and sellers before the July 31 trade deadline.

Really like the fact that the Phillies were willing to push to the extreme, salary wise and year wise to keep Cole who won us a World Series and has proven himself. Also during this process, Cole has said all the right things about his feelings for the city.

It’s market rate so I’m fine with it. He’s worth “top of the line” $$ if you look at his pitching stats so whatever the market is, that’s what he’s worth. I’d assume though that the next move is to move Pence and Victorino. Those moves seem like the most reasonable to get some prospects and clear up salary next year. If the Phillies do that, I’m a huge fan of this move.

Great Job, Ruben !!! Starting Pitching was the key to the Braves dominance for all of those years and now the Phillies should enjoy a good run of their own. He has a lot of work to do still to fix the bullpen and the lineup. Polanco, Victorino, Pence, Rollins, Blanton should all still be fair game if appropriate value can be extracted for them in return.

I think it’s important that the team now clear as much salary prior to the deadline as possible to avoid paying the “two year penalty” and only pay it in 2013. (according to Phily.com, it seems unavoidable in 13, but the can get under this year. It means giving up wins, but in an already lost season, I think it’s worth it

I agree completely …. the Marlins have a better record than us and have gone into SELL mode already (Anibal Sanchez, Omar Infante, Hanley Ramirez, and Choate all traded) . . . Phillies need to realize that trading Vic, Pierre, Blanton, Wigginton is the wise-move . . . unfortunately, Polly is hurt again and thus his trade value goes down.

I wouldn’t trade LEE – if people are trying to get YOUNGER, that means that we’ll likely rely on pitching even more next year, and if Halladay isn’t up to strength soon, that makes us rely on Lee even more going foward

The rangers aren’t going to part with Olt. Headley is the best bet but aren’t the Pads going to be looking for prospects? The other deal I’m curious about is lee for trumbo. I’ve heard that’s a possibility and makes sense since they have trout and a platoon option. Well see, but salary needs to be moved. All this starting pitching is fine but the Phils still need to address the offensive stability, the bullpen and the age factor. The only guy they have to look forward to is that hack D brown.

Olt still plays primarily 3b . . . . though he’s played a few games at 1b (which would be how he could potentially stay in TEX).. and 2 games in the OF

Since they have Beltre locked-up for 3b right now, i would not be surprised to see Olt dealt for a stud Starting Pitcher . . . but I also don’t see the Phillies trading Lee – so the dreams of Olt in Philadelphia should be all but done. . Also, Olt is in AA- it’s not like he’s a sure-thing, MVP that we can trade for and plug in at 3b … If the Phillies don’t sign Polly again, and don’t move Rollins to 3b- they need to get creative next year

some of you crack me up, you just signed the youngest and best pitcher on your staff, and you want to trade everyone away and surrond this staff with rookies or prospects for the next 2-3 years. I am not saying you keep this team it needs some help, but not sweeping changes, trade Vic or Pence and sign the one you do not trade, I think you can get something for KK or Blanton you can make that move. YOu have to deal with third base and right field, I know it is a small sample but this offense now that it is in tact can still play. If and I still say if cause I am a blind optimist, the Phillies are mathmaticly out of the playoffs in September and you put Chase on the shelf for the last few weeks he may be able to play the whole year next year. And before AFW jumps down my throught about keeping the same old guys, I am not saying that you do not make a move if you can get someone who is major league ready, trading for the sake of trading for other teams prospects I ll take the draft pick.
for guys like Blanton, Vic are on exxpireing contracts

agreed beta ! i feel as you do. why dump a bunch of guys for prospects now when your team is showing life! if you can add a bullpen piece to stabilize it and a few guys that have been counted on (but totally insignifant poly for one) and a maybe a guy like pierre who’s not going to figure in our future then do that if you want a 3rd basemen for now then you go get headley if he cost you a prospect or two and a blanton or a kendrick then you go for it and possibly flip some of the prospects you got for the above mentioned players and you’re still going forward. the offseason is the time you do the real retooling!

this is great! it’s the start of a new upcoming era! i don’t think it would be smart at this time to part with pence though. if we did we’d be short on a right handed bat with power. i understand some people are upset with some of pence’s gaffs in the field and his low ave. with risp, however he is the stat leader in HR’s RBI’s and his BA is decent. with howard and utley back and coming around we’re looking at a productive offence the rest of the way. to move pence now would only make sense if they got a bat in return.Trumo? ok! i’d be ok with that. as far as salary goes. who cares if they go over i don’t so why does everybody worry about it?

The only trades for lee would have to be for trumbo or olt. Amaro has built the team around pitching, thrown serious cash at it. To dismantle that now doesn’t make sense unless the return is a serious upgrade to a sorely needed position.

Amaro must have gotten hold of a printing press to be dishing out so much money.

Salary relief would help, but I don’t see where trading Blanton, Kendrick, or Polanco saves anything, because nobody would take them without some cash being thrown in. If the team wants bucks back, they really only have Victorino and Pence. Lee would be a possibility, but that would be cutting into a strength, and even a Lee trade might cost some cash.

Amaro will have to get extremely creative or just hope that the treasury men don’t catch him while he’s in the back room printing C-notes.

Well, maybe not so much, considering what Hanley makes and how he’s not been elite for some years now. The Dodgers just picked up a lot of salary for a guy who is sort of above average but hasn’t been right for a couple seasons.

1.5 seasons to be exact, 2011 and half of 2012. And in these two seasons his BABIP (.275 and .271) is substantially lower than his career BABIP of .333. Yes, he’s very bad defensively… but this guy STILL has the capability and talent to be elite. We’re talking about a guy who has put up WARs over 7 in two years.

Dodgers gave up nothing valuable to get him. AND they also got a pretty good lefty specialist for their pen as a throw-in. This is probably the best example of “buying low” in trades/acquisitions that have happened in the past several seasons.

The Marlins didn’t need a lot in return for Ramirez. Just getting him off the team was a huge plus. They now have a smaller payroll, fewer tantrums, and can sign someone else who can play defense and actually cares about the team.

The Phillies are showing life. The last two nights have been like the old days…kinda. There has been a spark. But its too late for this season. I liked Headley as an “under the radar guy” at one point but now everyone thinks he’s Bill Madlock. Let someone else over pay for him. And if Cliff Lee wants to be sore that he’s getting traded than he shouldn’t have blown a Series game last year and pitched crapy this. You don’t play well – people talk about trading you. I love Cliff but he’s not a 24m pitcher. And Halladay will be fine.

From what I’ve read, I think the thing with Headley is not so much that other teams all think he’s Madlock, but that the Padres think he’s Mike Schmidt.

Cliff Lee is very good, but I never thought he was a $24 million pitcher, either. Then again, I’m not a front office. There was one other front office that went close to that, and one that actually offered more. Makes a person recall that old Quaker adage “Everyone is crazy except thee and me, and sometimes I wonder about thee.”

Well the Phillies have put together their two most impressive wins of the season and now we know our son will stay with us for the long term. If this does not finally build some momentum then the season is truly over.

I don’t Lee will be traded as that would be a nightmare for Ruben. He is still getting criticized over the first trade so the pressure will be enormous on him to get a great return. Anything less than great will get grumbles again. Blanton, Victorino, and Wigginton are probably the most likely current Phillies to get traded.

The same space cadets that decided they knew that Cole Hamels would not re-sign with the Phillies when an avoidance of arbitration went down will now regroup with no shame, and proceed to tell the world how the Phils will deal with the expense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So many know it alls. Never mind leaving the art of negotiation to the 2 parties involved. Make sure you overanalyze Cole Hamels eye contact, public facades of expertly saying all the right things, and the need to offer a view so you feel internal closure.

At the end of a nothing short of outstanding negotiation by Cole Hamels, and John Boggs agency, the morale of the story falls squarely on the lap of Scott Proefrock, AGM of the club. Proefrock, perhaps had company, but specifically said, “There’s still PLENTY of time to work out a long term deal with Hamels. There wasn’t time then, let alone the last few days. Cole and Company backed the club in as small a corner as nature allowed, and one of the rreal winners will be the Hamels Foundation. With the extra money Cole figures to have earned by being patient, those funds alone will do wonderful work in the community.

Let’s see how the ballclub reacts to this news. It can’t be bad. A couple right moves (don’t ask me to define right), and the message stays the same. Deal with one competitor at a time. Square up with the Crew today, then pass the dismantled Fish. THEN, we talk about the Mets. There’s no need to think whether the Phils make the playoffs NOW. You can’t pass Atlanta until you pass Milwaukee. Then again, a lot of people thought they could pass the negotiation stage, and tell us exactly where Cole would be. Los Angeles, my ass.

I’m glad to see GM Amaro making the big move to sign Hamels to a long term contract and be the mainstay ace on the starting rotation. I won’t mocked those who wanted to see Hamels traded for “boatload” of prospects. I’ll leave that to other posters here. 😉

I also hope that Lee stays with the Phillies. Lee has had little run support this season (I still remember that awful feeling of seeing Lee pitched 10 shutout innings in a game and had nothing to show for it). Lee is human like everyone else and can be vulnerable to frustrations and losing focus in starts where he falls behind in counts and allows damaging hits with little hopes for offensive compensation from the Phillies. Also keep in mind he usually goes against the opposing team’s better pitchers.

Of course, pitching and defense are the cores of Phillies’ long running success in their division and the management knows this and it makes sense to keep the heart of the rotation in place for next season..Hamels, Halladay and Lee.

I don’t understand the thinking about Halladay and assumption that he “is showing his age”. Goodness sakes! He just got off from a lengthy stay on the DL and has had just TWO starts since then. Please allow him time to regain the command of his pitches and controling the strike zone. As you should know, he was never overpowerering but rather a finesse pitcher. So give him that slack please.

One more thing, the Phillies are gaining a little momentum and one important factor is having Utley and Howard back in the line-up. It shows how important they are to the team and how it affects game situation and altering the opposing pitcher’s thinking.